Earlier this week, a historic Reparations bill made its way out of committee, though in so doing, it was more a symbolic gesture than anything else.
Beyond a House victory, the fate of H.R. 40 — and its chances of ultimately making it to Joe Biden’s desk — is bleak. The White House has maintained that Biden supports the study of reparations and Vice President (then-Senator) Kamala Harris co-sponsored companion legislation in 2019. Still, full passage of the bill would require votes from all 50 Senate Democrats and 10 Republicans, who are almost certain to oppose it.
I want to cover a lot of ground with this post, and in so doing, I don’t want to rely upon a trope that simplifies reparations as a matter of white repayment for generations of black poverty. That is certainly part of it, but it’s not all of it. There’s a personal anecdote I would like to relate here that supersedes race and draws in class as well as deficiency in education.
My working class relatives—high school educated, accustomed to living hand to mouth from paycheck to paycheck, small town residents, experienced a severe tragedy in their family. They lost their son and the mother of the father to an inebriated truck driver, who, high on crystal meth, was traveling on the highway at upwards of 120 mph. The collision between the tractor trailer caved in the rear of the smaller vehicle, instantly causing the death of both passengers. The actual details themselves are gruesome and I will spare retelling them for those with strong imaginations and weak stomachs.
In any case, the family filed a lawsuit against the insurance company of the trucking business for wrongful death and refused to accept any out of court settlement. It was an open and shut case. They were awarded approximately one million dollars to use as they saw fit. But, having no understanding of money management, that million dollars quickly became whittled down to almost nothing. This is depressingly commonplace. The same is often true with lottery winners.
And, presuming our government were to grant reparations to historically persecuted minorities, who is to say that they would not run afoul of the same traps? I may have written about this before, but there’s an excellent ESPN Films 30 for 30 episode called “Broke” that covers much of this same ground. The program discusses how easy it is for professional athletes to blow through millions of dollars and then file for bankruptcy within a relatively short period of time. As I recall, a man in similar circumstances founded a program to teach basic economics and common sense often to men of color, also former athletes. Essentially, it showed them the best means of holding onto their money, even when their careers had come to a close.
Athletes are particularly susceptible to going bankrupt, as their primary commodities are their bodies and their basic health. Some can play for much longer than others. Others get injured relatively early in the career, making it even more imperative for them to budget for the future. In any case, what can be true is that any athlete in any sport must eventually retire, as bodies wear out with time. What they choose to do with their massive salaries, often granted before the hindsight of greater wisdom, is of paramount importance.
Now, on to the matter of paying reparations to historically persecuted minorities. I want to quantify these remarks by saying that everyone could benefit from a course or two on money management skills. We may not have a million dollars, but we do have the predilection of being wasteful at times with money. And much like my unfortunate relatives, who never went to college, don’t understand the value of investing in a mutual fund or 401K, or have more than a layman’s comprehension of basic finance, they too are manipulated by the system. Truthfully, we’re all manipulated by the system or by other people, especially when money is involved.
My personal reservations about granting reparations to minorities are not patrician, setting myself up as the primary arbiter of who understands “it” and who doesn’t. But what I will say is before we start cutting checks, there needs to be some oversight and basic education in place. Programs need to be set up along these same lines. I know I’ve written before about how financially irresponsible I was with the thousands of dollars of student loan money I was granted, with no strings attached, when I was barely old enough to legally drive myself anywhere.
But until we do that, our lofty ambitions will fail. I am reminded of the Chappelle’s Show episode that addressed this very issue, in which a Black man wins the reparation checks of several other Black men in a dice game. That skit was clearly satirical, not meant to be taken strictly seriously, but the reality that befalls all of us, regardless of skin color, is that it matters quite considerably how we choose to invest our money. I really wish we began early and schooled our children in matters such as these, rather than outsourcing them to licensed professionals. Some expenditure is, as we know, necessary, but we can be very wasteful, too. Our financial system is complex enough to begin with, and this is partially out of design.
My fear is that we may fall prey to the same mixed results of LBJ’s Great Society reforms. While Medicare and Medicaid were badly needed safety net programs, they still are highly imperfect and contain massive coverage gaps in severe key areas of medicine and medical coverage. I consider myself a good government liberal, and yet I recognize that throwing money at a problem doesn’t necessarily fix it. Successful outcomes require sensible policy, too.
Before I’d be willing to sign on for reparations, I’d want to know specifically where every cent went. I know that private entities, non-profits, and some church groups have started their own reparation programs, particularly by transferring personal stimulus money from their own pockets into those considered less fortunate. But it remains to be seen how prevalent that sort of benevolence lasts and how many people truly embrace it on a large scale. I don’t think we’re quite there yet.